Mayday, May Day!

As I mention above, my work hours suck.  It is not uncommon for me to work well over 12 hours a day,
and yesterday was no exception at 14 hours.  So, some of you may ask, how do I even write entries for my blog?   Usually, I type up a little something during a break or lunch over the period of several days in advance.  Sometimes, I might type up something for over a month before I can even have time to post it on the blog.  Well, the first of May has come and gone and depending on your leanings, it was either a day to celebrate the spring season or just have a remembrance of the Haymarket Massacre for labor rights.   Me, I was stuck at work - outside, in the cold, overcast of clouds and no sun, with the wind blowing non-stop all day long, for the whole 14 hours…so much for a nice spring day and nice work conditions!  But that is enough on how May Day failed me again.

So, I am working in eastern Kansas for about three months…oh the thrills never end.  It could be worst; I could be working in western Kansas.  The good note is I am very close to many of the ‘Bleeding Kansas’ sites.  So on one weekend, I should be able to hit a lot of those sites.  I am extremely close to the site of the ‘Battle of Black Jack’, which could be said to have been the first real armed engagement of the American Civil War.  On June 2, 1856, an armed band of thirty pro-slavery men under ‘Captain’ Henry Clay Pate of Missouri, were surprised by an equally large armed band of anti-slavery men under John Brown.  In a pitch battle for three hours, Henry Pate approached John Brown under the flag of truce to parlay; instead John Brown captured him and forced Pate’s men to surrender.    So this is a site that I really need to go see.  The bonus is that I will be round for the 158^th anniversary weekend, so I am wondering if there might be some type of an event going on that weekend, even if it is not an interesting number (i.e., 150^th or 175^th, etc.)

You may have noticed that the book that I am currently reading (see at the top right of this blog) has finally changed.  It was not because the previous book was too long or hard to read, but that for a while, I really lacked the time to sit a read.  But I finally got some time to finish it.  I highly recommend it, if you are interested in the Winter War or the Soviets in WWII especially.  Then I started reading James Erwin’s Guerrillas in Civil War Missouri.  I have also since finish reading the same book before I got to change my blog to reflect this.  So, I am getting ready to start reading his second book, Guerrilla Hunters in Civil War Missouri, which is what I now have posted on my blog.  In my previous entry, I mention that I was going to this author’s presentation at a local Civil War roundtable, which I did.  It was a very enjoyable presentation by the author and it made me decided that I was going to read both of his books next, in place of reading my final Winter War book on the Swedish volunteers. 

I also really want to read a book on Bleeding Kansas very soon as I am working in the heart of the same lands.  So, I might push back the book on the Swedish volunteers one more time.  Then I am planning to start reading some books on General Sterling Price’s great raid of 1864 very soon too as the 150^th dates are coming up soon starting in this September.  I know that I should read The Guns of August or some other WWI book about the beginning of the war for the 100^th of WWI, but that is too much in too short of a time, especially as slow as I read.   

I pre-ordered a book from Pen & Sword Press called, Exocet Falklands.  It is about the SAS/SBS operation to try to destroy the airbase on the Argentine mainland to remove the Exocet threat to their fleet in 1982.  I already have the Kindle book, Special Forces Pilot, which is the personal account of the RN helicopter pilot that was involved in recon raid for this secret mission.  So I am going to hold off of reading that book, until I get Exocet Falklands and can read them one after the other.

Finally, I got a lot of crap out of my basement and garage last week and into the trash.  I still have more to do before I can have my gaming area set up for my target date, but I am going to be a busy beaver on the weekends that I am home to try to meet that date or not much later.  I also started to go through and get some stuff lined up to sell, but have not had the time to post any of that and quite honest, I really do not have the time to get to the post office to mail said stuff if I did sell them right now.  But I think I am getting into a depression about miniature gaming as a whole, mainly due to my work hours / travels, and I am really starting to think that I might just sell / trash everything that is not completed or near completion, and start looking at making reading my main hobby.

I hope to run a game in about a month from now, so hopefully I can have a good AAR and pictures for everyone then.  I did bring a dozen or so figures to work on here in Kansas, but who am I kidding, I doubt that I will ever get around to working on them, after all, I have not painted anything in over a year.  But who knows…?

Be seeing you

Sapper